544 ProccediiKjs of the Royal Pliy^ical Society. 



1. White-tailed Eagle {Halioitos cdbicilla), (Erne, SecvEagle). 

 — This line bird is not quite exterminated in Shetland, 

 though it has, as elsewhere, become very scarce of late years. 

 As far as I have been able to gather, there are still four or 

 five occupied eyries. In the Scotsman for 6th August 1883, 

 there appeared a long account of the capture of a pair of 

 eaglets from a nest on the Bard of Bressay, in the previous 

 June, by James Laurenson of Lerwick, which account, I am 

 informed by the captor himself, is substantially correct. In 

 June 1886 two Lerwick youths took a pair of eaglets from a 

 nest close to this locality — on the Noup of Noss. Mr 

 Howard Saunders, in a paper in the Zoologist for January 

 1880, throws doubt upon the eagles having built in this dis- 

 trict in 1879, but I think it very probable they did so. 

 There is another eyrie of the erne, v/hich was tenanted in 

 1884, in the island of Fetlar, and another is situated in Yell. 

 From this last a single young bird was taken in June of last 

 year (1887). This bird is now in the possession of James 

 Laurenson, and is " doing well." Besides these, I discovered 

 another on the 3d of June 1887, on Mainland, and had the 

 pleasure of seeing one of the old birds within a short distance. 

 This eyrie is in an exceedingly difficult situation, protected 

 from above and below by projecting points of rock. The old 

 eagle, after sailing slowly past, mobbed all the while by the 

 lesser black-backed gulls, perched on a rock about two hundred 

 yards distant, and after uttering several short yelping cries, 

 sat watching me in silence until I left. I had information 

 of a sixth nest on another of the islands. There are thus a 

 few of these fine birds in Shetland, though they are very 

 much reduced from what they were fifty years ago, — the 

 numbers of erne stacks all round the coast giving us some 

 idea of the abundance of the sea-eagle in bygone days. The 

 report of the golden eagle having nested in Bressay in 1879, 

 which appeared in the Zoologist for that year, p. 461, is alto- 

 gether apocryphal. From all accounts the golden eagle has 

 not nested in Shetland this century. 



2. Peregrine {Falco peregriniis), (Stock Hawk — Goshawk) is 

 by no means a numerous bird in Shetland, though a pair may 

 be found breeding on many parts of the coast. I only met 



